Wednesday, 28 October 2009

A recent survey in the UK revealed that 54% of respondents would like to see alternatives to the theory of evolution being taught in schools - and in response, a new policy will be coming into force next month that requires every other competing idea to be given similar discussion time in classrooms.

In a spirit of equality, diversity, and fairness, the scientific theory of biological evolution will be supplemented with all other traditional and modern explanations for the existence and variety of life observed on the planet. Popular opinion has decided that the previous system - teaching only the model almost universally accepted by scientists and with a vast body of evidence accumulated over decades to support it - was unfair. The alternative explanations being introduced alongside evolution include the Genesis creation myth popular with some sects of Christianity; a similar creationist view espoused by the Qur'an, the central religious text of Islam; the belief sacred to Pastafarians that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster; the Kiowa Apache myth that the world was created from the sweat of four gods mixed together in the Creator's palms; and many hundreds of others.

"It's important that our children get to hear about other people's perfectly valid points of view, so that they can make up their own minds," said campaigner and mother of three Julie Smethwick. She went on to justify at length her implicit assertion that uneducated infants are better able to distinguish truth from fallacy than qualified scientists who spend years testing hypotheses and refining theories based on a critical analysis of the available data.

"To assume otherwise is elitist and bigoted," she concluded.

Those teachers and activists who have been campaigning for a longer school year will also be buoyed by this news, as primary and secondary education will have to be extended by up to seven extra weeks a year in order to accommodate, in equal measure, every single explanation ever proposed for the origins of life, so as to be truly unbiased and culturally sensitive.